There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow

By Caleigh Crow

Grocery-store clerk Beth has had a hell of a week. A hell of a life, actually, full of people squashing her soul. And after pushing back at life—stabbing a steak to her boss’s desk and lighting a magazine rack on fire, for instance—freshly unemployed Beth regroups at her mom’s suburban home. Just when Beth starts to think she’s to blame for systemic limits, the gift of a bird feeder sparks a relationship with a talking Crow who reconnects her with her true power.

This sly chamber piece from new voice Caleigh Crow turns post-capitalism ennui on its head with a righteous fury. It unearths the subtle (and not so subtle) ways we gaslight the marginalized, especially Indigenous women, people living with mental-health afflictions, and anyone struggling to make ends meet in low-income service jobs. There Is Violence captures the vivacity and humour of one truly remarkable woman not meant for this earth, and brings her to her own glorious transcendence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9780369104724

Caleigh Crow

Caleigh Crow is a queer Metis theatre artist from northeast Calgary. Previous playwriting topics include a talking crow and a grocery clerk, the mass coronal ejection of 1859, the Antifa supersoldier, the intersection between twelfth century Franciscan nuns and Britney Spears, remote viewing, witch revenge, and a landlord musical. She is the co-founder and artistic lead of Thumbs Up Good Work Theatre. Her work tends towards themes of metaphysics, class struggle, magic, and serious whimsy.

Book preview

Cover: There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death, Or The Born-Again Crow by Caleigh Crow. On the bottom half of the cover, there is illustration of four black crow heads. The crows are overlapping each other. There is pink highlights on the eyes, cheeks, and beaks of the crows. The background is painted blue.

There is

Violence

and there

is righteous

violence and

there is death,

or the Born-

Again Crow

Caleigh Crow

Playwrights Canada Press

Toronto

Copyright

There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or,

The Born-Again Crow © Copyright

2023

by Caleigh Crow

First edition: October

2023

Printed and bound in Canada by Imprimerie Gauvin, Gatineau

Jacket art, Enchanted, © Joshua Barkman, https://falseknees.com

Author photo © Kelly Osgood

Playwrights Canada Press

202-269

Richmond St.

W

., Toronto,

ON M5V 1X1

416.703.0013

| [e-mail] | www.playwrightscanada.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review or by a license from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca.

For professional or amateur production rights, please contact Playwrights Canada Press.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: There is violence and there is righteous violence and there is death or, The born-again crow / Caleigh Crow.

Other titles: Born-again crow

Names: Crow, Caleigh, author.

Description: A play.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print)

20230509592

| Canadiana (ebook)

20230509630

|

ISBN

9780369104700

(softcover) |

ISBN

9780369104717

(

PDF

)

|

ISBN

9780369104724

(

EPUB

)

Classification:

LCC PS8605.R6885 T54 2023 | DDC C812/.6

—dc

23

Playwrights Canada Press staff work across Turtle Island, on Treaty

7

, Treaty

13

, and Treaty

20

territories, which are the current and ancestral homes of the Anishinaabe Nations (Ojibwe / Chippewa, Odawa, Potawatomi, Algonquin, Saulteaux, Nipissing, and Mississauga / Michi Saagiig), the Blackfoot Confederacy (Kainai, Piikani, and Siksika), néhiyaw, Sioux, Stoney Nakoda, Tsuut’ina, Wendat, and members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora), as well as Metis and Inuit peoples. It always was and always will be Indigenous land.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council (

OAC

), Ontario Creates, the Government of Ontario, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities.

Logo: Canada Council for the Arts.Logo: Government of Canada.Logo: Ontario Creates.Logo: Ontario Arts Council.Logo: Government of Ontario.

Dedication

For my mom.

Thank you for loving books so much, loving plays so much, loving music so much, and for loving life so much. I was really lucky to be your daughter.

Miss you.

Production History

There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow was first produced by Thumbs Up Good Work Theatre, with the support of Calgary Arts Development, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Canada Council for the Arts, from March

1

to March

9

,

2019

, in the Motel Theatre in Arts Commons, Calgary, with the following cast and creative team:

Beth: Caleigh Crow

Crow: Colin Wolf

Mom: Deedra Salange Ladouceur

Tanner Braeden/Jane/Jim/Stephen: Noah Baker

Co-directors: Caleigh Crow and Colin Wolf

Live Music Composed and Performed by Sacha Crow

Stage Manager: Sara German

Set Design: Sydney Wolf

Properties: Sydney Wolf

Lighting Design: Kai Hall

Costume Design: Lindsey Kapitzke

Dramaturgy: Elena Eli Belyea

A Note on the Score

Without the score, it feels like half the play is missing. My ever-talented husband and creative partner, Sacha Crow, wrote an ambient, haunting score and performed it live in every show. This was the second time we collaborated on a theatre piece, and the first time we incorporated live music into our production.

Collaborating with Sacha has had an immense impact on my artistic practice. I firmly believe that a live theatre performance is a thousand times better when the music is also performed live. Liveness being the magic of our artform, it also resists archiving, especially in the form of a playtext.

If you’d like to produce this play, please prioritize a budget line for live music, and don’t be afraid to play it loud.

Characters

Beth: A young woman. Metis or mixed Indigenous.

Crow: A talking crow.

Francine: Beth’s mom. Metis or Indigenous.

Tanner Braeden: Beth’s next-door neighbour and ex-boyfriend.

Jane: A news reporter.

Jim: President of the

HOA.

Stephen: Beth’s boss.

Cameraman: A cameraman for Jane.

A forward slash ( / ) indicates an interruption.

Italicized text in dialogue indicates overlapping speech.

Scene 1

It is late in the day. Suburban backyard. There is a door to the house and a fence and trees. There is an assortment of outdoor furniture. There are garbage